


Shadow Warrior

by luxorar



Series: Retoldverse AU [1]
Category: Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja
Genre: Alternate History, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Character Death, Child Soldiers, Crushes, Enemies, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Florida, Friendship/Love, High School, Japanese Character(s), LGBTQ Character of Color, M/M, Magic, Martial Arts, Moral Ambiguity, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Native American Character(s), Nonhuman/Hybrid Characters, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Retelling, Secret Identity, Serious Reboot of Canon, Time Travel, Training, Weapons, longfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:33:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28819311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxorar/pseuds/luxorar
Summary: Norrisville has secrets.It has had them for as long as anybody can remember.Randy Cunningham has become a crucial part of these secrets, in just one day.He has no idea what he's going to endure.
Relationships: OC/Canon - Relationship, OC/OC, Randy Cunningham & Howard Weinerman
Series: Retoldverse AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113014
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Shadow Warrior

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this reboot/retelling project since I was in high school and RC9GN first came out!! It's much older than even my _Our Souls_ fic. This is technically a crossover with Danny Phantom, American Dragon: Jake Long, Xiaolin Showdown/Xiaolin Chronicles, Life & Times of Juniper Lee, and Gravity Falls, but you won't really be seeing any of those characters yet, only possibly mention of where they live in the news or things from their canon (for instance, Danny Phantom's Nasty Burger is a chain fast food restaurant widespread all across America, like Burger King). This is going to be a serious remaking of canon, taking out all the silly elements. If you don't like that, sorry.
> 
> This fic is a first draft.

Randy doesn't see the point in raiding the kitchen for more snacks when Howard will be heading home soon anyway. 

"You're gonna eat my family outta house and home, dude," he laughs when Howard suggests it, not exactly saying no. It means they get to spend more time together if he does go get it. Randy rarely gets tired of that. "There's only like one bag of Cheetos left."

"I'm _serious!"_ Insists Howard. He's always serious about food.

Randy doesn't even pretend to think about it, "As long we split it."

"Of course we will, dingus," Howard snorts, and Randy realizes it kinda _was_ an unnecessary thing to say. The two of them share everything in their lives almost regardless of what it is. Even colds.

Randy finally caves. He knew he would from the start. It's hard for him to say no to his best friend -- his "biffer," as the kids' slang goes. Adults would call it _kids' slang_ , anyway, like they do a lot of the words Randy's generation uses; he's fourteen. So is Howard. Their birthday is in the same month of July.

Moving to the kitchen and looking in the cabinets, his guesstimate of exactly one bag of Cheetos proves right. He grabs it and heads back to his room, where all his gaming platforms and the household's third TV are. The first is in the living room, and the second's in the master bedroom. The entirety of summer break was spent binging shows, new and old video games, and action films on his TV with Howard. Just like last year's break.

He'd never change it for the world, he thinks.

He hands the snack bag to Howard and the ginger-haired boy snatches it immediately, tearing it open. He first takes a handful for himself, then offers another to Randy. Randy isn't all that hungry, but he accepts it anyway. Half-heartedly nibbling on a Cheeto, he settles down onto the floor beside Howard, as their favorite game _Grave Puncher_ boots up and loads the starting screen. This one is an older installment in the series, but it's still good. Anything _Grave Puncher_ is good.

Something tells him Howard will be late to go home tonight. Randy hopes Howard's 'rents won't get mad. He picks up the extra controller and gets ready to join in while Howard skips the opening cutscenes with all the ease of practice. As he always does while crunching through a game he knows by heart, he lets his thoughts drift. Today is Sunday, and their first day of ninth grade begins tomorrow. Yesterday, as he does every Saturday morning for an hour till noon, Randy practiced the piano on the piano in the living room. Then for the rest of the day until he got bored he’d practice his guitar and-or keytar. Or draw. He loves to draw, especially if it’s fanart. Of course, it’s just as likely that after piano he’d scrub all his plans clear and just opt for another day spent with his moms -- he has two -- or Howard. He'd started learning piano when he was six, guitar since he was nine, and he's been drawing since he could hold a crayon. In his not entirely humble opinion, he was pretty good at all three. Not an _expert,_ but...

Anyway, it’s unlikely his weekend plans will change too much even with school starting again, though he doubts they’ll be allowed to stay up so late on Sunday nights anymore. He’s kinda confused why they’re being allowed to right now, honestly. But, he’s not gonna complain.

“What’re you gonna do tomorrow, man?” Randy suddenly inquires, apropos of nothing.

“Hell, I dunno,” Howard blinks, but his gaze doesn’t stray from the TV screen, glued to it, “Try to survive school?”

“That’s fair,” Randy nods neutrally. 

Neither of their grades are the best, usually Fs at worst and Cs at best. Randy knows for a fact that his parents hate it, and Howard’s can’t feel much better about it. They used to do their homework together dutifully in elementary school and got great report cards there. Then, they went through middle school, and it was like Howard developed a vendetta against education, for some reason. So, Randy just sorta followed him down. His biomom Addy insists they can both do far better, and his other mom Chris just calls it plain stupid. Considering how mad Randy’s seen Howard’s ma get, it must be even uglier in his house. His dad -- his dad who Howard calls by his actual _first name,_ Mort, for as long as Randy can remember -- never really seems to get angry at anything and spoils both his kids rotten. Howard has a big sister named Heidi, who’s always busy. He knows _she_ gets amazing grades since she’s allowed her own “news show” at her high school, or so he’s heard from Howard.

The same high school that he and Howard are going to be attending tomorrow. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna do about his grades yet. Chris-mom’s always hammered it into his head that they are important. Getting through middle school consistently disappointing her was torture, especially when to boot Addy-mom is an art teacher herself, _in Randy’s old middle school_ , and knew who to nudge on the rest of the staff to keep an eye on him for her -- thank god he was never actually placed in her class, though of course, he had an art class. He drew too much and too often to not. Now he’s just barely passed eighth grade with dismal colors and…

He’s working himself up about this.

“Pass me your soda?” He asks Howard. The other boy does glance at him, this time, and then hands him the 2-liter Coke he’d been hogging. Randy takes it gratefully and gulps down some of it straight from the bottle. Neither of them has ever cared about backwash. It’s probably why they catch each other’s colds.

The Cheetos he just ate leave behind a smell on his fingers not unlike the color orange with yellow flecks. The Coke is brownish-taupe. He was born with odor-color synesthesia, so everything he smells is interpreted as a color, sometimes a patterned color, or more than one at once.

“Are _you_ worried about school tomorrow, Cunningham?” Howard blurts, and Randy is surprised. His biffer isn’t really one to bring up feelings. Also, he always calls Randy by his last name, ever since they were three and met for the first time.

“Uh...yeah. Because of bullying,” he lies.

“Aw! It’s supposed to be a really good school. Like, the teachers actually care about the students kinda thing. Heidi says so.”

Randy’s pretty sure Heidi is a good judge but he still says, “That’s what they told us about Dalton,” their middle school, “And all the girls were super-mean to each other.”

Like the one girl, Theresa Fowler, who was brutally bullied by a gaggle of bitchy girls just because her dad was a cop. At least, he thinks that’s the reason -- he’d overheard them harassing her about it more than once, but they got on her case for a whole slew of things, all throughout sixth to eighth grade. It was weird because they seemed to all be friendly back in elementary. It got to the point that in seventh grade Randy started defending her, even though it earned him severe flack some days from those same girls. Theresa always said thanks for it, and then she’d practically run away from him. Hey, some people were just shy.

“Yeah, but I think it’s actually true this time around,” Howard insists.

“Maybe,” Randy shrugs, “I hope so.”

The two-player game hasn’t paused much while they were talking and they get closer to finishing the first level.

\--

It must’ve been an hour gone by when Randy’s alarm on his phone dings for 9PM, meaning it’s time for all activity to stop and he must go to bed.

His bedroom door swings open and there appears Addy-mom, “Randy! Is Howard still h--” She catches sight of the other boy in the dim lighting of the room; the two biffers are illuminated by the TV screen, “Howard, your mom is looking for you _right now._ I just got a call from her.”

Howard isn’t as rude with Randy’s parents as he is with his own, so he just says quietly, “Oh, crap,” and drops the controller in his hands onto the floor. Randy swiftly saves and then shuts off the game, following Howard and Addy into the living room. The light here compared to his own bedroom makes him squint momentarily.

“I’m gonna call her back,” Addy tells them and searches her recent contacts to redial the other mother’s number. There’s a pause as it rings, and then, “Gertie, hey, Howard’s still here with us. I had no idea.”

 _“I thought he might be,”_ the familiar voice of Gertie Weinerman grumbles audibly from the other end, _“That boy is in trouble! I told him when to come home tonight.”_

Howard lives two streets away from Randy. It’s easy for them to visit one another...when they are allowed to. The other boy’s brows are furrowed and he’s frowning deeply. Randy knows what that means. It’s gonna be an argument in the Weinerman family van tonight, a loud one. He feels sorry for his biffer.

 _“I’ll be there in a minute,”_ Gertie informs Addy, who says _All right_ and hangs up.

“I lost track of time,” he begins, but Chris-mom’s intone approaching from behind him interrupts. All three of them turn to see her.

“You’re both to blame for this, don’t bullshit us. You’re having _school_ tomorrow, we’ve been reminding you for weeks.”

Tall as ever, she looks sternly down at them, arms crossed.

“You just wanted to play games. If I had known Howard was here, I would’ve sent him home at six like Gertie wanted.”

Randy purses his lips a little and stares off to the side. He can’t argue with her. She’s the disciplinary parent, and she’s proud of it. Howard doesn’t make a peep, either. Randy’s pretty sure he’s always been a bit intimidated by her. Sometimes, he is, too, but only when she’s angry and drilling him.

They wait there. It’s not long at all before there’s a rapping knock on the door and Chris opens it at once. It’s definitely Gertie, short, bespectacled, and pudgy, looking tired.

“Come on, Howard,” she makes a motion for him to follow, “I hope you all have a good night,” she bids to Randy and his moms, and the three of them collectively nod, before Randy’s biffer disappears behind a closed door. The last thing Randy sees of him is a brief lock of eye contact and in the brightness of the front doorstep’s outdoor lamp, his irises are a more vivid brown than usual.

He doesn’t try to speak again, instead turning on his heel and watching his mothers for direction. 

“It’s past nine, go to bed,” instructs Addy.

“Okay, love you guys,” he bounds back to his room, _not_ looking at Chris, and hastily deciding to not shower for once before bed.

“You should’ve known better!” Chris calls after him.

“I’m _sorry,”_ he mutters.

He changes into his pajamas quickly and climbs into his high-rise bed, and from the angle he’s at, he can clearly see his bedroom window is wide open, no screen separating the outside and the in. He’d opened it earlier that day to pet the neighbor’s cat that periodically showed up for scritches, and forgot about it. Oh, well...it’s a safe neighborhood they live in, so he guesses it can stay open. It never gets too cold in the city of Norrisville, Florida, anyway.

Thinking, he wonders about the _other_ thing about high school he and Howard hadn’t discussed, though they had many times before. The fact that Norrisville High was no ordinary school, not by a long shot.

As much as that excites him and he looks forward to it...he’ll think about it tomorrow.

He’s asleep in less than ten minutes.

\--

(Norrisville has secrets.

It has had them for as long as anybody can remember.

The oldest one is the identity of the seemingly immortal masked man who protects it, the Ninja of Norrisville, who mainly patrols Norrisville High School, since most of the incidents he must interfere with occur there. He has done this since 1951, the year the school was constructed and opened up to students. Before then, outbreaks would happen all over the city--

Outbreaks of what?

Of green fog. A dank-smelling, heavy green fog that transforms anyone who inhales it -- if they’re miserable enough -- into great, horrible beasts capable of immense destruction unless the object in their grasp, unique to each monster, is destroyed, harmlessly returning them to humanity. While it’s not impossible for an ordinary person to break the object, it’s extremely difficult because the monsters guard them so closely. Curing people of being “stanked,” as the local modern term for it is, has always been the Ninja’s job.

And this all happens regularly at the high school Randy and Howard will be going to, every weekday between breaks. For four years. He almost hopes he gets summer school, if it means having a better chance at seeing the Ninja. He’s been obsessed with the guy since he was little. He has plushies, posters, all kinds of other merchandise and history books about him. Howard idolizes him, too.

Randy can’t wait.)

\--

Willem Viceroy III sips his morning chamomile tea, complete with honey and cream, and waits for the elevator to reach its destination. He watches the world outside the windows before him as he ascends. He’s going to the highest floor, where his closest friend -- and employer -- Hannibal McFist’s office resides. In his unpreoccupied hand is a folder full of documents he’ll need to show the other man, related to their _passion project_ if it could be called such. They’d been working on it for decades, and while there’d been attempted stabs in the dark to launch it before now, Viceroy is confident it is finally ready to go.

Smoothly, the elevator comes to a stop, and without even a pneumatic hiss, the doors slide open to reveal a wide, wide office, with a single long desk near the gigantic window where a balding, blond man is seated.

“Viceroy,” Hannibal greets, and there’s an expectant gleam in his eyes, as there often is, “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”

“I know, so have I,” Viceroy nods, “A culmination of all my genius, you could say.” 

He couldn’t precisely have _not_ said that. He is quite aware he has an ego, and frankly, he is proud of it; it’s a well-earned ego. His self-satisfied smirk as he slaps the folder onto the desk and opens it is not uncharacteristic, and he puts down his cup of tea upon the desk so he can do something. Hannibal watches as he holds up one paper in particular: one with a hologram engraved into it of the final and finished rendition of Viceroy’s killer robot (to describe it in layman’s terms), created with every intention to destroy the one, mysterious individual that Hannibal despised most in the world. The Norrisville Ninja.

The CEO trillionaire grabs the holographic photos from Viceroy’s grasp and examines them. The robot jumps up from the page as he flaps it once, activating the hologram; brought to still life. He meets Viceroy’s eyes again, darkly pleased.

“Good,” is all he says.

Viceroy’s smirk turns into a grin. His friend and boss is not a scientist or engineer himself, but he’s spent enough time around Viceroy and conversed with him enough since they were young to at least understand when something like this is superior.

“We should speak to _him,”_ points out Viceroy, “Don’t you think?”

Hannibal’s eyes narrow. Wordlessly agreeing, he presses a button concealed under his desk and mechanisms behind Viceroy, in the center of the room, whir to life. Particles of greenish swirling light form within the machine. Recently have these interior changes been done in here, designed by Viceroy himself, of course, to allow them relatively easy access to making contact with their newest and most crucial ally. A monstrous being, the Norrisville Ninja’s oldest and worst enemy, a creature of untold evil power--

Known only as the Sorcerer.

The green, foggish light warps and contorts momentarily as it seems to struggle forming a shape. 

It finally settles, and glaring down at them with staring white eyes is a large, projected...face. An ugly, green, misshapen face framed by a raggedy hood.

Viceroy doesn’t like the Sorcerer anymore than he knows Hannibal doesn’t. Something about his presence, even through the use of a machine, sets a shadowy cast to the room. Instills a pit of dread in both their guts. The sole reason they sought him out as an ally was because Hannibal wanted to see if the local Native American tribes’ legends about the Ninja’s mortal enemy were true, and if they were, if the fact could be of any use to their goals. Months of meticulous research of where exactly the stank fog originated from underground led to a tiny remote-controlled robot being sent as far down far as it could go till a red, impenetrable glowing barrier was encountered. The robot was equipped to let Viceroy analyze this barrier, and all the results that came back just served to convince him magic is indeed real.

The artificial trespasser did not go unnoticed.

From deep, deep down in the inky darkness of the Sorcerer’s supposed prison, beyond the barrier, came a voice: _“Well, who might you be?”_

The robot had a sound system that allowed Viceroy and McFist to speak through it, and this was how their first conversation with the Sorcerer began. The Sorcerer was surprisingly amiable and well-spoken, for a time. It became apparent there was a veiled fury in those eloquent depths soon enough when the Sorcerer snapped at them to shut up and let him finish. A deal was struck eventually. 

Hannibal and Viceroy would murder the Ninja in return for any one power granted Hannibal by the Sorcerer. It went unspoken that the Sorcerer would be freed upon the Ninja’s death; it was obvious. It was Hannibal’s decision, ultimately, and so Viceroy left it up to him. Viceroy didn’t and doesn’t want any special powers or abilities, he has everything he needs in his magnificent brain.

Hannibal agreed to it, almost impulsively. It was simply more motivation to destroy the Ninja.

In the same place where the robot had bumped into the barrier, Viceroy had sent more down over the course of weeks to construct a reliable communication device. And now, here they are.

 _“Today is the day,”_ rumbles the projected head, _“Is it not?”_

“Yes, it is,” Hannibal answers with an edge to his tone, whether from the horrible feeling the Sorcerer emanated or something else, Viceroy isn’t sure. “I’ll get my wish.”

Viceroy isn't quite certain how the Sorcerer is managing to actually show his face. The communication was meant to relay his voice alone. He does not ask after it, however. His mouth is tightly shut.

_“See that you do.”_

The tension dissipates suddenly as the projection melts away, and the room is brightened.

Viceroy doesn’t think he’ll ever like conversing with that thing. But it hardly matters. What matters, is the day’s plans…


End file.
